NAIROBI, 11 June 2010 (IRIN) - Continuing conflict has displaced thousands of people in Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, while poor crop production and the lean season have led to extreme levels of food insecurity, especially in Akobo County.

A nutrition survey in the county in February 2010 by Save the Children, an international child rights organization, and Medair, a relief agency focusing on health, found global acute malnutrition (GAM) prevalence of 45.7 percent, and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) prevalence of 15.5 percent.

These levels are triple the recognized emergency thresholds of 15 percent for GAM and 4 percent for SAM. "[This is] a significant cause for concern, especially given the poor food security outlook for the displaced in the coming months," the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) reported.

Poor and displaced households - about 30 percent to 40 percent of Akobo's population - are likely to meet only 60 percent of basic food needs this year, although slight improvements in food security are expected with the green harvest in September, FEWSNET said.

Aid workers in Southern Sudan said Jonglei had been quieter since January 2010. In 2009 more than 2,500 people were killed and 350,000 displaced by violence across the state, and between January and June 2010 some 450 were killed, according to UN estimates.

Tensions rose over the outcome of Sudan's historic elections in April, created by a standoff between former Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) general George Athor, and his former colleagues in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Athor, a former governor of Jonglei, contested the April elections as an independent candidate but lost to the incumbent, Kuol Manyang. Athor claimed the elections were rigged and called for a fresh poll. The SPLA then accused him of attacking a strategic army base near the border between Jonglei and Upper Nile states; Athor later threatened to attack Bor, the state capital.
In a speech on 16 May in Juba, capital of Southern Sudan, commemorating the start of the SPLM/A's armed rebellion against the Khartoum government 24 years ago, SPLA chief of staff Lt-Gen James Hoth Mai called for the resolution of tensions before the referendum on southern autonomy, to be held in early 2011.

"The finish line lies on the referendum," he said. "We, the Southern Sudanese, cannot afford to let the referendum period reach us while in disharmony. Time has now come for reconciliation. For this reason, I call upon comrades Kuol Manyang, George Athor, and others of Jonglei State, to bury your differences and forge a way forward for the benefit of your people."

Concerns

Aid workers in Juba said they were concerned that civilians in Athor's native area, Khorflous County, could be trapped in an area of combat. Other sources said Athor had blocked disarmament in his home area when the army conducted civilian disarmament in Jonglei, before the April elections.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that no significant displacement had taken place, but said the situation was a potentially destabilizing factor at a time when Jonglei had over 21,000 persons newly displaced between January and April.

"Internal conflict, rather than the prospect of a return to war between the north and south, poses the biggest threat" to holding the southern referendum, and to "the viability of South Sudan as an independent state," analyst John Young warned in a report for the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.

He told IRIN that months of SPLA-led disarmament in Jonglei had been problematic because the process was based on past models, which had failed to remove weapons from civilians.

According to OCHA, up to 4.3 million people – around half the population of Southern Sudan – will require food assistance at some point during 2010.